The Wisconsin Cheese Showdown

[Landslide Lyndon]

Congratulations krazey! You've just become the sole member of a very special club: my ignore list.

[Badger]

Yes, and the collective bargaining has been so "abused" that they're going to essentially abolish it for public employees.

"Freedom".

BTW, your assessment of public sector employees and pensioners as "upper income" is idelogical and ignorant rather than pragmatic or remotely accurate. Grossly so actually.

Nothing new. Public sector workers are expressly excluded from the Wagner act, and other states have done so.

Wisconsin is just late to the party.


Edit: I might add, there are provisions in the law to allow unions to continue to plunder the taxpayer. They can get as much salary as they choose when it passes a referendum.

For some reason, leftists have a lot less faith in the people now......

Wisconsin has had in for about 50 years. This is a power grab pure and simple.

[krazen1211]

Yes, and the collective bargaining has been so "abused" that they're going to essentially abolish it for public employees.

"Freedom".

BTW, your assessment of public sector employees and pensioners as "upper income" is idelogical and ignorant rather than pragmatic or remotely accurate. Grossly so actually.

Nothing new. Public sector workers are expressly excluded from the Wagner act, and other states have done so.

Wisconsin is just late to the party.


Edit: I might add, there are provisions in the law to allow unions to continue to plunder the taxpayer. They can get as much salary as they choose when it passes a referendum.

For some reason, leftists have a lot less faith in the people now......

Wisconsin has had in for about 50 years. This is a power grab pure and simple.

The bolded is exactly what the formation of public unions was in the first place, as evidenced by this chart and the rapid increase in teachers collecting from the trough for that same 50 years.

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_064.asp

[Landslide Lyndon]

Yes, and the collective bargaining has been so "abused" that they're going to essentially abolish it for public employees.

"Freedom".

BTW, your assessment of public sector employees and pensioners as "upper income" is idelogical and ignorant rather than pragmatic or remotely accurate. Grossly so actually.

Nothing new. Public sector workers are expressly excluded from the Wagner act, and other states have done so.

Wisconsin is just late to the party.


Edit: I might add, there are provisions in the law to allow unions to continue to plunder the taxpayer. They can get as much salary as they choose when it passes a referendum.

For some reason, leftists have a lot less faith in the people now......

Wisconsin has had in for about 50 years. This is a power grab pure and simple.

Badger, I have some friendly advice for you.



Seriously dude, don't stoop to the level of a Glenn Beck knock-off.

[Beet]

I'm sympathetic to this viewpoint. Here's the thing that gets me, though. You say this issue has nothing to do with the budget. Yet the outcome of this battle will surely impact the budget, not only in Wisconsin but in many other states, and not only this year but for many years to come. I mean, when does it become about the budget? We've been putting off the budget discussion for 10 years, which is why we're in this mess to begin with. In Washington, they're not seriously discussing it either. I demand to have the budget discussion. And since no one is giving it to me, I want to take it where-ever I can get it, including this union-busting bill. In other words, I'm not buying px75's bullsh**t. Even the Ezra Klein blog post makes no refutation of the $2 billion-$3 billion deficit claim. So the cuts have to come somewhere. Where do you think they should come?

Of course not. The idea is to lie and pretend that this action is about the last couple months of this year's budget, when its actually about the next 2 years worth of budgets and red ink.

Doyle unfortunately expanded government health care for the poor during his tenure and blew through any sort of cash balance he could get his hands on, such as the transportation and medical malpractice funds.

Yeah, I'm very disappointed that the Democrats here try to pretend as if Wisconsin has no budget problems and need no cuts. There are legitimate objections to what Walker's doing which have been brought up, so the bald faced lies are unnecessary.

Face reality people.

[opebo]

... I really don't see why do people that spend workdays picking their noses and surfing the interwebz need to unionize anyway.

The rich aren't unionized, fellows; as you point out they don't need to be.  We're discussing public servants here.

[Torie]

The teacher's have no contract? That is what I infer when krazen said that the Dems attempt to force one through in the lame duck session was killed.  In which event, why is it necessary to pass this law at all?  Just tell the unions what you are willing to pay (looking at the whole compensation package, including pensions), and that you won't go any higher. Period. End of story. That takes this union busting card entirely off the table. It becomes solely a money card, and what I care about is money.

[Torie]

... I really don't see why do people that spend workdays picking their noses and surfing the interwebz need to unionize anyway.

The rich aren't unionized, fellows; as you point out they don't need to be.  We're discussing public servants here.

How about major league baseball players?

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

The teacher's have no contract? That is what I infer when krazen said that the Dems attempt to force one through in the lame duck session was killed.  In which event, why is it necessary to pass this law at all?  Just tell the unions what you are willing to pay (looking at the whole compensation package, including pensions), and that you won't go any higher. Period. End of story. That takes this union busting card entirely off the table. It becomes solely a money card, and what I care about is money.

Torie returns to sanity, good.

For a second there I seriously thought that you were arguing for the busting of the unions.

[anvi]

Just some sundry info about public teacher compensation in Wisconsin.

The average public school teacher salary in Wisconsin clocks in at just over $51,000 a year, which ranks 20th in the U.S. 

More specifically, preschool teachers make an average of $23,000 per year, elementary school teachers $51,000 and secondary school teachers just under $50,000.  Secondary school teacher pay provides a good example of the average range of salary depending on experience; entry level teachers in secondary school make over $30,000 a year and those close to retirement make an average of just under $70,000.  While starting public school teacher salaries in Wisconsin are low, they enjoy a rather steep "climb" rate.

What Torie writes about the pension and health care contributions being required by Governor Walker is correct; teachers are being asked to contribute 5.8% of their salary to their pensions and 12.6% to their health care plans.  These amounts are increases from current levels of 0% teacher contributions.  In Wisconson, for every dollar spent on salary, an additional 33 cents is spent on benefits, which ranks it at 8th highest in the country according to this measure. 

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Does anyone have any data on Wisconsin's debt/Wisconsin's debt to GDP ratio? Every site I've been to looks to either exaggerate data or be for teabaggers and all of them show different numbers. Forbes has a good interactive site that shows tax-supported debt, debt to GDP ratios etc but it's a year old.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

I seriously hope that these teachers have their pay docked and are disciplined... calling in sick when you're not really sick is unnacceptable.  If I did that 3 days in a row and didn't bring in a doctor's note, I'd be fired.

[phk]

... I really don't see why do people that spend workdays picking their noses and surfing the interwebz need to unionize anyway.

The rich aren't unionized, fellows; as you point out they don't need to be.  We're discussing public servants here.

How about major league baseball players?

Or movie stars.

[The Dowager Mod]

I passed up a lucrative proffesorship at Marquette because i wanted to help public school kids, nice to be demonized for it.

[Insula Dei]

I passed up a lucrative proffesorship at Marquette because i wanted to help public school kids, nice to be demonized for it.

Be silent, you wicked Union thug! Isn't it enough that you're stealing our future and that of our kids with your unreasonable demands? Isn't it enough for you to have the joy of thinking about all those banker's children growing up in an America impoverished by the likes of you?

[krazen1211]

The teacher's have no contract? That is what I infer when krazen said that the Dems attempt to force one through in the lame duck session was killed.  In which event, why is it necessary to pass this law at all?  Just tell the unions what you are willing to pay (looking at the whole compensation package, including pensions), and that you won't go any higher. Period. End of story. That takes this union busting card entirely off the table. It becomes solely a money card, and what I care about is money.

That contract had to do with state union workers; I don't think it included teachers.

Basically, state workers didn't have a contract for the 2009-2011 cycle. This was fine until November 2010, when all of a sudden it wasn't (I wonder why).

The Democrats bailed a drunk driver out of jail to ratify the newly signed contracts in December, which passed by 1 vote in the Assembly.

But they failed in the Senate when former Senate Democratic Leader Russell Decker voted them down. Democrats promptly kicked him out of leadership, and unions started threatening him and calling him names.

It's all posted somewhere in this thread.

[Nym90]

Wow. I actually respect something about the Packers.

Well if nothing else, I would think you'd also like the fact that they are owned by their fans as opposed to by one wealthy owner or family who can do as he/she/they please with the team like every other major North American sports franchise.

When you think about it in fact, the NFL is pretty damn socialist, having a hard salary cap and all, which makes skill in drafting and evaluating players and good coaching the keys to success, not the amount of money spent. And scheduling, the draft, etc. are also all designed to promote parity, again pretty left wing....

I'm kinda surprised there isn't more opposition to that. Maybe the fact that the NFL also happens to be far and away more popular than other North American sports leagues that have a looser or non existent salary cap (i.e., it works)?

[Torie]

The teacher's have no contract? That is what I infer when krazen said that the Dems attempt to force one through in the lame duck session was killed.  In which event, why is it necessary to pass this law at all?  Just tell the unions what you are willing to pay (looking at the whole compensation package, including pensions), and that you won't go any higher. Period. End of story. That takes this union busting card entirely off the table. It becomes solely a money card, and what I care about is money.

That contract had to do with state union workers; I don't think it included teachers.

Basically, state workers didn't have a contract for the 2009-2011 cycle. This was fine until November 2010, when all of a sudden it wasn't (I wonder why).

The Democrats bailed a drunk driver out of jail to ratify the newly signed contracts in December, which passed by 1 vote in the Assembly.

But they failed in the Senate when former Senate Democratic Leader Russell Decker voted them down. Democrats promptly kicked him out of leadership, and unions started threatening him and calling him names.

It's all posted somewhere in this thread.

So help me out. What the f'ck is the legislature voting on then?  The terms of the contract?  And is the concept of "union busting" here simply that the state won't talk to the union, because it is a take it or leave it deal (but really not union busting at all), or is more in play here?  If nothing more is play, meet with the union, drop off the terms, say they are not subject to change (the terms where what the governor ran on, and won apparently), and wish them a nice day - and leave.

This thread is kind of a mess really, and I am not sure that I didn't add to the disarray! 

[Rowan]

They currently don't contribute anything to their pension at all?? How is that sustainable at all for the state?

[krazen1211]

So help me out. What the f'ck is the legislature voting on then?  The terms of the contract?  And is the concept of "union busting" here simply that the state won't talk to the union, because it is a take it or leave it deal (but really not union busting at all), or is more in play here?  If nothing more is play, meet with the union, drop off the terms, say they are not subject to change (the terms where what the governor ran on, and won apparently), and wish them a nice day - and leave.

This thread is kind of a mess really, and I am not sure that I didn't add to the disarray!  

I believe its a set of laws that prevent any sort of collective bargaining for benefits at the state or local level, as well as a somewhat separate fiscal measure to increase state worker contributions to their pensions and healthcare.

It also makes union dues non-tax deductible, thus raising revenues (yes, a republican is RAISING taxes!), and unions across all levels would have to hold an annual vote amongst their members and get a majority to retain their union status.

Unions would still be allowed to bargain over wages. Any wage increase over the CPI would be put to a referendum to the voters; liberals REALLY don't like that idea.


Overall, its not unfair to say that this will break state unions. I'm ok with that.

[The Dowager Mod]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc4TXdPxUcE&feature=player_embedded

[Torie]

The union can chat about wages, but not benefits?  Do they go to jail, if they bring up benefits in a meeting or what?  That seems to make zero sense to me. It seems inane. Am I still missing something? The CPI cap seems inane too. Suppose you need to raise compensation more for some to attract persons who can walk and chew gum at the same time? Each time you need do to that, we need a referendum on the ballot do we?  Heck, maybe there would be six of such referenda on each ballot, since presumably one size does not fit all. Is that any way to run a railroad?

[Torie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc4TXdPxUcE&feature=player_embedded

Ah yes, the firefighters. I know them well.

[krazen1211]

The union can chat about wages, but not benefits?  Do they go to jail, if they bring up benefits in a meeting or what?  That seems to make zero sense to me. It seems inane. Am I still missing something? The CPI cap seems inane too. Suppose you need to raise compensation more for some to attract persons who can walk and chew gum at the same time? Each time you need do to that, we need a referendum on the ballot do we?  Heck, maybe there would be six of such referenda on each ballot, since presumably one size does not fit all. Is that any way to run a railroad?

Seems to me the bolded can be done with individual employees; just not with a collective union.

They should really just duplicate the Virginia statute and outlaw the process.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Amazing, this all in a state that has a surplus.